Hi, back in the 70,s i drove a Cat 966C in the logging industry , the loaders i drove were brand new and never had any problems with them,, I left the industry back in the 90;s and now am looking at buying a cat 966 C to clear up my farm,but my query is even though i had no problems with the loaders when i was driving them as they were new..,what about as they got older , is there any common known faults as the machine aged, such as planetary hubs, transmission faults etc...I know these loaders were built to last as was the Cat 966B... any info would be helpfull....
nevilley, Been a few years since I worked on many 966C's and they were one of my favorite machines in their size range. Fairly basic and easy to work on. If there is a weak point to them that I have seen it is more related to lack of maintenance. Specifically keeping them properly greased. The bucket linkage does have a somewhat complicated system of pivot points and if let go things get very sloppy fast and takes lots of work to bring back to proper form. Not sure about the market in Australia but at least here in North East USA even ones sitting more or less abandoned when put up on online auction sites they bring way more money than most larger machines. That can be a two way street. May cost a bit more when you are the buyer, but if you want to sell after you are done with your project they should not loose any value to speak of. Brakes are nice basic air operated drums. Maybe to worst project would be if you need to pull transmission as it is direct mounted to the engine. Most anything can be done on the engine with it in place short of replacing rear crank seal or ring gear. It's not too bad a job to pull the engine and leave the transmission in place. Just need to make a simple bracket to hold up the engine side of transmission. Piece of heavy angle iron and some all-thread works fine. I also believe there is a good market of aftermarket and Cat Classic parts available if problems do come up.
I agree with kshansen, we have 2 of them that work almost every day. With proper maintenance they are great machines. There still are quite a few around for a reason. Parts are easy to get and are relatively easy to work on. I don't know of any other brand of wheel loader of that vintage still running in our area but can think of several 966c's.
Make sure the center hitch is not worn out. Big job to fix. Later Bob
Yes, guess I forgot about that part. But at least it's not a bad as on a 988B, done a few of those over the years! If caught soon enough where you don't need to line bore it's not that bad if you have a good shop to work in. I was spoiled where I worked 40 ton bridge crane that ran the full length of the shop.